Evoland

Ex­plore gam­ing evo­lu­tion

Evoland is a retroin­spired jour­ney through the his­tory of gam­ing. With nods to cher­ished clas­sics such as Poké­mon and The Leg­end of Zelda, it’s a novel idea with a com­pelling story and some gor­geous graph­ics.

Progress is re­warded with grad­u­ally up­graded vi­su­als and new abil­i­ties that mir­ror video game devel­op­ment, all ac­com­pa­nied by hu­mor­ous (if some­what sar­cas­tic) com­ments on your new­found pow­ers.

It’s an in­trigu­ing con­cept, ul­ti­mately let down by clumsy con­trols that bor­der on the frus­trat­ing. And while recre­at­ing the worlds of yes­ter­year has its charm, there are some ghosts of gam­ing past we’d rather weren’t re­vived (such as con­stant ran­dom en­coun­ters).

With a few mi­nor tweaks, Evoland could have stolen our hearts, and we wish we could rate it higher. Un­for­tu­nately, we’re left with the feel­ing that it’s a bril­liant idea that just misses the mark. Alex Blake

Frus­trat­ingly close to be­ing the game we’d love it to be, Evoland takes a pleas­ant trip down mem­ory lane.